Men who were lovers in the olden time,
Who praised the beauty of bright hair and brow,
And left a little monument of rhyme,--
Wrought not more tenderly than I would, now,
To turn some changing syllables of praise
For her whose quiet beauty fills my days.

VI

THE TOWNSMAN

Here would I leave some subtle part of me,
A moving presence through the friendly Town,
Abiding still, and happy still to be
Where thoughtful men pass daily up and down;--
An essence stirring on the ways they fare,
Haunting the drifted sunlight where they go,
Till one might mark a Something on the air,
Most near and kind--though why, he would not know.

Happy, if it may chance, where two shall meet,
Pausing to pass the friendly, idle word,
In the hushed twilight of the evening street,
I might stand by, a secret, silent Third,--
Most happy listener, if I hear them tell
How, with the Town--and them--it still is well.

AFTER SUMMER RAIN

All day the rain has filled the apple-trees,
And stilled the orchard grasses of their mirth,
Turning these acres green and silvered seas
That drowned the summer musics of the earth.
Now that this clearer twilight takes the hill,
This thin, belated radiance, moving by,
Bird-calls return, and odours, rainy still,
And colours glinting through the earth and sky.

Here where I watch the robins from the lane,
That pirouette and preen among the leaves,
These swift, wet-winged arrivals in the rain
Have spilled a wisdom from their dripping eaves,--
And beauty still is more than daily bread,
For fevered minds, and hearts discomforted.

THE KINGS ARE PASSING DEATHWARD

The Kings are passing deathward in the dark
Of days that had been splendid where they went;
Their crowns are captive and their courts are stark
Of purples that are ruinous, now, and rent.
For all that they have seen disastrous things:
The shattered pomp, the split and shaken throne,
They cannot quite forget the way of Kings:
Gravely they pass, majestic and alone.

With thunder on their brows, their faces set
Toward the eternal night of restless shapes,
They walk in awful splendour, regal yet,
Wearing their crimes like rich and kingly capes....
Curse them or taunt, they will not hear or see;
The Kings are passing deathward: let them be.